Abstract

English course is an informal school in which English is the main language expected
to be used in the classrooms. However, since the students have more than one language
repertoire, their choices to use one code instead of the others is unavoidable in the real
practice. From a case study in an English-course class, there are several cases found where
the students chose a particular code, whether it is Indonesian or Javanese language, rather
than English, which is the main code in that particular setting. This paper presents the
research about the students’ motives towards choosing one code (Indonesian or Javanese)in preference to the other codes in a foreign language setting by analyzing the students’
utterances using the theory of language functions by Roman Jakobson (1960)The results
show that the students use both Indonesian and Javanese to serve conative functions, with the
different orientation of addressee. Moreover, the metalingual function is conveyed exclusively
using Indonesian language, whereas the students mostly used Javanese language to express their emotions toward something.